Check it out – if you click on my Redbox link and it’s your first time renting online, you’ll get a free one-night online rental credit. And I’ll get a free rental each time you rent via my link during the program. If you haven’t tried Redbox to rent movie DVDs, I highly recommend it!

Justin.tv is the largest online community for people to broadcast, watch and interact around live video. Anyone can broadcast live on Justin.tv network. All you need is a computer, a web cam and an Internet connection. Justin.tv provides the rest. You can create your own channel across a range of categories (Producers, Sports, Gaming, Social, Entertainment, News & Events, Science & Tech, Animals, Educational) to create broadcasts, including:

Lifecasting: Share your life online 24/7.

Backstage Pass: Become “almost famous” as you get an insider’s look at a band’s life on the road.

I guess in this case, life sometimes imitates art, though as the Businessweek article below states, some lifecasters, “simply want to connect with a community, while others merely want to broadcast special moments, such as weddings, graduations, and even Sunday Mass, to family, friends, and neighbors who can’t be there.” — BudgetMaven

It’s past noon, and Justin Kan is still exhausted. The 23-year-old star of video blog Justin.tv has been awake until around 6 a.m., busy moving into his new apartment. Of course, thousands of dedicated fans of Justin.tv probably already know this. Every breathing moment of Justin’s life—except, perhaps, the rare intimate one—has been broadcast live on the Web since Mar. 19, thanks to the cameras positioned around Kan’s apartment and fitted to his ubiquitous cap. For the complete Businessweek article, click here

The town in which I live has a large outdoor concert venue. Every year, they have Independence Day fireworks. This year, James Gaffigan conducts as Radio Disney presents the 22nd Annual 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular featuring the San Francisco Symphony. Song selections will be from Apollo 13, Rocky, Superman, James Bond, Lincoln Portrait, and many more!

I haven’t been to the fireworks in a long time, but I am excited about going tonight. I went to see the ones on the pier in San Francisco with my sister about 8 years ago when she came out to visit. The fog over the Bay was so bad, the fireworks got lost in it. Fireworks and a SF symphony concert remind me of when I used to live in Boston and would go to the free fireworks at the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade along the Charles River synchronized with the Boston Pops.

I plan to park far enough away so that I don’t have to pay for the $10 for parking. The friend I am taking and I will get in a nice walk (which I will give myself credit for on FitDay.com, the free online Diet and Weight Loss traking system I blogged about yesterday).

By reading the free weekly town paper that gets delivered to my doorstep, I found a coupon for 2 free lawn tickets to the event for town residents. They haven’t offered that freebie in a few years. All I had to do was be one of the first 1000 people to clip the coupon and bring it to the ampitheater box office and show my drivers license and one additional proof of residency (a utilitiy bill, etc.). Additional tickets were available for purchase.

Many cities offer a free fireworks show to celebrate the 4th of July. Take advantage of the festivities. You’ll save money and be entertained on a grand scale.

Make it even more enjoyable by packing snacks and drinks to enjoy during the show while sitting on a picnic blanket. Happy 4th of July everyone!

I know it’s not the only one out there, but along with 2.2 million other members, I really like FitDay. FitDay is a free online diet journal that allows you to track your foods, exercises, weight loss, and goals. FitDay also has a PC version of the fitness journal for $29.95, but the free online version suits me just fine.

You can use your free online account to enter your daily foods and exercise. FitDay analyzes all your information and shows you:

It takes time initially to input any and everything you have eaten in a day, but once the data is in there, FitDay stores the info in a “recently eaten” list so it can be re-used. You can also create customized foods. For example, I don’t need to look up 1 cup steel cut oatmeal with 1/2 a granny smith apple or 1/2 cup of blueberries and 1 tsp of cinnamon every time I eat that for breakfast (a few times a week). I just need to select and enter it from my recently eaten list.

The detailed info and charts on nutrition show you how close you came in a day (or a week) or what you’re missing as the day progresses in meeting the FDA daily recommended allowances for vitamins and minerals. I take a multi-vitamin every day, so maybe it’s my personality, but now that I am tracking what I eat, I want the most bang for the buck or, in this case, calorie. FitDay certainly helps me really think about what I am putting in my mouth. I now find myself making better choices to lower consumption of “empty” calories while increasing my choices of things like nutrient rich “superfoods”. Kale has suddenly become part of my culinary repertoire, a first for me.